Fertility, childbearing age, and education

Kazuhiro Yuki and Chen Wu

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper develops a simple, analytically tractable model of fertility and education in which individuals live for three periods. A distinguishing feature of the model is that adulthood consists of two periods, and individuals can have children in both periods. The periods differ in that parents can have a choice on their own education (corresponding to higher education) in the first period of adulthood, while in the second period, they do not have such an option and instead face higher costs of rearing and education of their children. We examine how well the model can explain the major changes in fertility and education since the early 20th century in countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. qualitatively. The model effectively accounts for trends in fertility among younger and older mothers, total fertility, and the secondary and higher education of young cohorts, with parameter changes capturing possible factors that contributed to the evolution of fertility rates, as proposed in the literature or suggested by empirical evidence.

Keywords: fertility rate; childbearing age; timing of birth; education. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 J13 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
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